Guilty Bystander (1950) Brooklyn Alkie Noir

Under the Brooklyn Bridge.

The East River. The waterfront. The crummy edge of Brooklyn Heights, then, now part of trendy DUMBO.  Then, just a rundown dump. A woman drives up in a taxi. Georgia She pays the driver. He speeds off.

Georgia's standing in front of the "Riverview." Probably "Riversmell" would be equally appropriate.  Its a resident dive hotel with a convenient bar tucked into the corner. The lobby has mildew, potted plants, and a three legged derelict  The office back of the lobby desk has a smoky poker game. Georgia rings the desk bell. A matron, Smitty. steps up out of the game. She takes one look at Georgia, pegs her for a hooker, and tells her we're filled up.

Faye Emerson as Georgia

Mary Boland as Smitty

Georgia blurts out that she's looking for the house detective Max Thursday. Smitty tells her number 38 and its his day off so knock hard. She heads upstairs. Ex wife Georgia knocks. No answer. She pushes in the door. It knocks over a bottle that rolls under the bed.

Zachary Scott is Max Thursday

Max Thursday. Ex NYPD. Currently alkie. House dick. Sleeping off his day-off bender. Face down. On bed. He has a porn star mustache. He's wearing a day old stubble, wrinkled pants, and a wife beater. A class act.

Georgia is desperate. She wakes Max out of his stupor by telling him that that their son Jeff is missing. Max sobers up quick.

Georgia tells Max that she went into the city yesterday to look for extra work, and that she left Jeff with her brother Fred. By the city, to any non New Yorkers, she means Manhattan. When she got back she found a note from Fred saying that he had to go on an errand for Doc Elder and that he was taking Jeff on a choo-choo ride.

She waited up all night and they didn't show. Max asks her what the police said. She tells him she didn't go to the police. When Max asks why, Georgia tells him Doc Elder warned her not to. Max asks her where can he find Elder, she tells him in his office across from her apartment. He tells her that he'll be there in an hour.

Max borrows a fin from Smitty and heads out into the night. When he confronts Doc Elder the Doc pulls a gun on  him. Then the Doc offers Max a drink. Alky Max naturally can't refuse. He takes it, he takes another. When Max ain't paying attention Doc Elder knocks him cold.

Jed Prouty is Dr. Elder

 Hours later Max wakes up in jail, a suspect in Doc Elders death.

Sam Levine is Captain Tonetti

Georgia gives him an dubious alibi. His old boss Captain Tonetti doesn't believe it but lets him out anyway. When he's let out again Max steps out into Noirsville .

Noirsville

Third Street Bridge over Gowanus Canal

Third Street Draw Bridge over Gowanus Canal

Kay Medford as Angel

J. Edward Bromberg as Varkas

Jesse White as the Masher

Dennis Patrick as Mace

Directed by Joseph Lerner. Written by Don Ettlinger and based on the novel by H. William Miller and Robert Allison Wade. Cinematography was by Russell Harlan (Gun Crazy (1950), Southside 1-1000 (1950), Ruby Gentry (1952),To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)) and Gerald Hirschfeld (Fail Safe (1964), The Incident (1967)). Music by Dimitri Tiomkin.

The original story in the novel all takes place in San Diego. There are six Max Thursday novels in toto, Fatal Step, Uneasy Street, Calamity Fair, Murder Charge, and Shoot to Kill.

The film stars Zachary Scott as alcoholic ex cop Max Thursday. Faye Emerson as Georgia his ex wife. Mary Boland as Smitty the owner of the Riverview Hotel. Sam Levine as Captain Tonetti of the NYPD. J. Edward Bromberg as mobster/smuggler Varkas, Kay Medford as the hooker Angel.
Jed Prouty as Dr. Elder, Harry Landers as Bert, Dennis Patrick (Dark Shadows he played Paul Stoddard and Jason McGuire) as Mace, Ray Julian as Johnny, Jesse White as the Masher, and John Marley as the bartender.

The copy I saw before this was atrocious. This print is quite the improvement. What was literally unwatchable is now a moody film with a depressingly gritty atmosphere. The bars are grungy, the hooker is convincingly sleazy, the subway chase is excitingly filmed. Its entertaining and features the Brooklyn East River waterfront and Red Hook.  7-8/10 Thankyou BYNWR

"This movie presents a curious case. It obviously was made on a rock-bottom budget (and looks it); its plot -- about a kidnapped boy -- is as hard to follow as The Big Sleep's, without any of that movie's big-studio glamour and high gloss; and prints of the movie in circulation, with poor sound and visuals, don't help its reputation either. Nonetheless, Guilty Bystander has a few very strong points in its favor. Chief among them is the old pro Mary Boland as Smitty, the proprietress of a fleabag hotel several notches below the threshold of respectability; she's a scheming old battleax who has more going on under her unkempt wisps of grey hair than she wants her cronies and go-fers to know. Next there's Zachary Scott, as Max Thursday, an ex-cop now sleeping off benders in the same fleabag, where he's kept on as the house dick; an underrated actor, he invests his loser's role with a painful intensity, stumbling and limping from skid row to waterfront to warehouse in pursuit for the son he hasn't seen in years. As his ex-wife and mother of the kidnapped boy, Faye Emerson (Mrs. Elliott Roosevelt to you), brings more than her fabled bone structure to the part. In fact, with better acting than you have any right to expect (plus an unrelentingly depressing milieu), Guilty Bystander is more than a curio; it's as if the cast knew what a lousy movie they signed up for and decided to go for broke anyway." (bmacv from Western New York - IMDb)